Moment No·73
by Fair Hearing
Summary: Edgeworth and Phoenix enjoy a little philosophical discussion during downtime. ‹They are lawyers, after all.› Major PxE, minor sexy stuff, moderate saccharine.


**Moment No.****73**  
_ by Fair Hearing_  
(wardofcourt at gmail dot com)

* * *

___  
_

"That's what he told me," said Edgeworth, with a small shake of his head against Phoenix's stomach. He was staring up at the ceiling. "On my twelfth birthday. I remember it well."

"I refuse to believe he was serious." Phoenix took a thoughtful drag from his cigarette and let out the smoke in a huff. "'Perfection is the only truth'? What was he, Darth Vader? Is this bothering you?"

He was gesturing to the cigarette. Edgeworth glanced up, shook his head again.

"Darth Vader, bad guy from Star Wars," Phoenix added, as he reached over and snuffed out the cigarette on an ashtray. "A movie."

"Oh."

"That was my last smoke, by the way."

"So you've said before."

"I know." Phoenix sighed, then shifted. Edgeworth lifted his head obediently, and Phoenix slid slowly down the sheets till the two of them were facing each other. He rested his chin in his hand. "It's hard to quit."

"Self-control, Mr. Wright."

"I never did have much of that."

Edgeworth lay his head back on one arm. His other hand he brought up to rest against the hollow where Phoenix's chest and throat met. "Perhaps," he said, tracing with his fingers gently. "But then, perhaps self-control is not as desirable as we've all been led to believe."

"Yeah?" Phoenix was absent-mindedly stroking Edgeworth's hair. "I thought it separated us from the animals, and all that."

Edgeworth was quiet.

"Yes," he said after a minute, "but that doesn't mean it makes us better." He skimmed his palm lightly down Phoenix's side, rested a hand against the bone of his hip. "It takes self-control to nurture the ugliest parts of us. Tremendous self-control. It's hard work, endless work, to keep oneself shut off from any doubt, or any weakness, from anything that might shake the resolve. Or anyone." His mouth tugged upward slightly.

"So you don't think Pol Pot ever considered a career change."

"Right," Edgeworth said with a soft laugh.

"Mm, but," said Phoenix, taking Edgeworth's hand and slowly stroking the long fingers, "don't you also think it also goes the other way? Like, don't you think all the good humanity had to offer came from self-control, real determination? I mean like crazy determination."

"Like...?"

"I dunno. Gandhi. Martin Luther King."

"I would say that's different. Their determination came at least partly from faith."

"What, there aren't any crazies who believe they're doing the will of heaven and everything?"

"Not the true humanists." Edgeworth watched as Phoenix traced a thumb down his palm. "Humanism is separate from religion -- though I think they should certainly overlap -- and all the great men and women I know of have been, first and foremost, great humanists. Their faith was in humanity. In life."

Phoenix considered this for a moment, his hand warm against Edgeworth's wrist.

"Do you think we default that way?" he said, brushing his lips against Edgeworth's knuckles. "Unless something goes wrong?"

"Yes. Unless we make a conscious choice otherwise." Edgeworth curled his fingers around Phoenix's. "It's a critical choice, no doubt. One we have to keep making for the rest of our lives. But yes, it's a choice."

Edgeworth looked up. Phoenix was staring at their hands, their intertwined fingers. After a moment, he spoke.

_"Yours is the choice, to whom the gods awarded  
The language of learning and the language of love:  
Crooked to move as a money-bug, or a cancer,  
Or straight as a dove."_

There was silence. Then Phoenix looked up to see Edgeworth watching him, and laughed.

"Auden, I think," he said. "Or Eliot. Something I had to read in college, anyway. I like to pretend I can quote poetry at any occasion. It makes me feel smart."

In reply, Edgeworth laid a hand on Phoenix's cheek. Then he leaned in and kissed him, long and lingering. Their mouths tasted like each other.

When they parted, Edgeworth brushed their lips together.

"Please, Wright. Don't try to make excuses for how sexy you are."

"Sexy?" Phoenix said, running his broad warm hands down Edgeworth's back. His breath was already coming faster.

"Reciting poetry to me in bed. Honestly."

"Too maudlin, huh."

Edgeworth glanced at him, and then, carefully, deliberately, took his face between his hands to look him in the eyes. "No," he murmured. "Not too maudlin."

Phoenix, his ears and cheeks deeply flushed, stared back, without speaking. Edgeworth felt himself smile -- not with his mouth, but with something inside him.

When he leaned in again, he heard Phoenix whisper something into his ear.

"There once was a man from Nantucket..."

Phoenix tried to finish, but broke into uproarious laughter as Edgeworth grabbed him by his sides and straddled his chest. "'Whose,'" he struggled to gasp, "'Whose'... urg... come on, Edgeworth, this is a serious poem!"

But by then, Edgeworth had quieted him with his mouth.

* * *

___  
(A/N: __This was originally written for the Phoenix Wright Kink Meme, with the request "Phoenix and Edgeworth lying in bed naked, discussing life, the universe, and everything."_

___And it_ was_ Auden, by the way. :)_


End file.
